KDs are designed/developed/inspired/mused/auto-suggested/indigested to make folks think; an especially uncommon experience among Democrats, Republicans, and jingoistic mainline denominationalists who continue to discourage dissent with their ever-threatening thought police.

Thursday, June 28, 2018

I admitted it in a book that nobody’s read: “I prefer Harley-Davidsons over all other makes for patriotic as well as performance reasons…I refuse to feed the coffers of countries who dump their products into our market while employing unfair trade and labor practices and I just like the way my HD sounds, looks, feels, and rides!”

Wow!

Not that anybody noticed, but that was written back in 2012.

That’s long before the tariff wars and even the Russians decided who will be our President.

Unless your first name is Rachel, Jim, Chris, or too many folks not covering real news in print or on screen, you didn’t miss the sarcasm in the preceding sentence-paragraph.

I know too many folks are increasingly humorless and take themselves too seriously; but I’m trying to lighten things up every now and then from the thick cloud of depression, negativism, crankiness, and fatalism born of increasing unGodliness in America.

Staying with HD for a while which I have done for most of my riding career, I know HOG riders can be really arrogant about their bikes and condescending about other brands.

It’s almost an idolatry!

Well, uh, it is an idolatry as noted by all of the clothing and charms with HD on ‘em.

I even know people who don’t own or ever ride one who have pants, denims, jackets, T-shirts, tank tops, shoes, socks, sunglasses, belts, bandannas, boots, gloves, woolies, hoodies, halters, hats, headbands, lip balm, rings, earrings, wallets, watches, and even undies and other unmentionable ornaments and accessories with Harley-Davidson emblazoned on ‘em.

More than almost any other brand or product or American symbol, Harley-Davidson and USA have always been synonymous.

Until now.

In what seems like the last sign of the apocalypse or surely the demise of American civilization, Harley-Davidson is shifting parts of its production from America to Asia and Europe.

While I’m more of an exegete than economist, I know HOG riders; and I know they’ve been feeling increasingly betrayed by Milwaukee because of the portrayal of riders as soccer moms, distancing from its most historical constituencies, replacing classic models with Harleywings, producing promotional literature that’s sooooooo carefully politically correct, enabling pathological hysteria about helmets, and causing even 1%ers to reconsider their rules about mandatory rides.

With Victory biting the dust and Milwaukee’s “Made in the USA” mantra devolving to hollow braggadocio, a brother deadpanned, “Well, there’s still Indian.”

That’s tame considering these lines from Motorcycle Madhouse on 4 June 2018 that questioned HD’s “America First” pledge: “The reason so many of us chose to ride Harley-Davidson was that it was an American company…Bikers are supposed to be some of the most loyalist people on earth…[With HD leaving the country]…Maybe this is why new sales are way down.”

O.K., I’m sorry.

I’m just a little OCD about HD and riding as explained in my book about it that nobody’s bought or read.

For me, it’s just another symbol of so much going to everywhere but heaven in America.

I know it’s always been challenging.

Anyone who’s read Genesis knows that.

From the beginning, families have been messed up.

You know the stories.

Even the first family had kids who hated each other.

Adultery, theft, murder, lying, and every other infidelity have been around since the first breaths of Adam and Eve.

So Psalm 13 isn’t an unfamiliar prayer.

“How long,” David asks God in prayer, “am I going to have to endure all of this meanness, madness, misery, and miscreance?”

How long am I going to be hounded and hunted down by Your enemies who are now my enemies because of my loyalty to You?

Are my personal and family and all of the other problems in my life ever going to end?

How long do I have to live with these frustrations, disappointments, disasters, and shattered dreams?

That’s the question of Psalm 13.

How long?

Nothing new.

Nothing seems to have changed from the garden through David throughout history.

Hassles.

I think of the fellow who asked me, “Does it ever end?”

You could have answered for me: “No.”

Groote aka Kempis wrote a lot about this harsh reality in the late 14th century (Imitation of Christ): “So long as we live in the world, we cannot be without tribulation and temptation…When one temptation or tribulation goeth away, another cometh; and we shall ever have something to suffer.”

Ouch.

Bikers know all about that.

They’re either riding into rain or riding out of rain before riding back into rain because there’s always rain.

Faith does not make us immune to life’s challenges.

Faith is the only way to overcome them.

That’s the good news of Psalm 13: “But I have trusted in Your faithful love. My heart will rejoice in Your deliverance. I will celebrate your eventual rescue. I will sing to the Lord because He has treated me generously. He will take care of me.”

Psalm 13 acknowledges no one is immune to life’s challenges pero rejoices in everyone’s opportunity to overcome them by getting closer to God.

When I was a younger pastor, I went to see James Brown; not the Papa’s Gotta Brand New Bag JB but the JB who was pastor of Parkesburg, Pennsylvania’s Upper Octorara Presbyterian Church.

I went for two reasons: (1) His church was alive and growing and mine wasn’t; and (2) I was feeling pretty depressed about it.

He said, “Nothing can happen through you that has not first happened to you. If you want the church to get closer to God, you start. If you expect nothing from God, you will get it every time! Trust Paul. He said God works for good in everything – sooner or later – with people who love Him. Because you love Him, trust Him.”

Of course, that’s the qualifier.

Trusting God.

Increasing trust in God by getting closer to Him.

Again, it’s a choice.

We choose to get closer to God and get blessed by God…or not.

When we’re overly depressed by the circumstances of our lives or feeling distant from God like we’re in the desert not an oasis of refreshment, it’s not His fault.

Charles Spurgeon discovered weather vanes are quite symbolic.

They say two things to us.

The weather changes but God’s love for us never changes.

Whichever way the wind blows, God still loves us.

We just have to dress for the weather.

Like a biker caught in the rain, it means to put on the rainsuit.

Jesus.

Like a traveler in a world with so many twists and turns, it means putting on Christ and never taking Him off because the weather is always changing but His passion for saving us never changes.

Tuesday, June 26, 2018

The bad news of the psalm is don’t bet the farm on anyone else’s words.

It’s right at the top of the list of the Scout’s Law: “A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.”

We could put it another way.

Because true to their oath-law-motto Scouts are trustworthy, we can count on them to be loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.

Trustworthiness seems to be the foundation of all of the other character traits of Scouts.

Unfortunately, this psalm is David’s conclusion that too many folks have broken trust by not being true to their oath-law-motto and, therefore, can’t be trusted to be true to their oath-law-motto.

Some folks just can’t be trusted because they are not true to their words.

With these being those prophesied days when lies are substituted for truth, we can no longer trust too many words being consistent with the Word; or as I’ve come to believe, as an example, any connection between too many churches and Jesus by the book is as coincidental as too many politicians, lawyers, and judges to our Constitution.

Just as recent history suggests the current national leadership of Scouts isn’t as faithful to the origin of Scouting’s values in Holy Scripture as it used to be, there’s always been the temptation to substitute humanly invented/nuanced words for the enfleshed Word of God in Jesus and explained Word of God in Holy Scripture.

Keeping in mind that David probably wrote this psalm after realizing he could no longer trust Saul, Absalom, and many others, he contrasts human words from God’s Word.

In a kind of you-are-what-you-eat etiology, David is saying words matter and betray what’s really going on in a person’s head, heart, and gut.

In other words, what we say is most often who we are.

Take note as you listen to the words of Barr, Fonda, Bee, Behar, Kimmel, Comey, Trump, and…you…and me…and everyone!

This psalm laments words exposing a sad distance between too many people and God; especially those words that are less than the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Human words often lie, flatter, deceive, boast, and honor the unGodly: “The loyal have disappeared from the human race…Lies slide off their oily lips…They doubletalk with forked tongues…They use flattery to deceive to darkness…They brag, ‘We can talk anyone into anything!’…They use nice-sounding words to destroy who and what are good.”

Have you ever taken your car to a dealer for a simple oil change?

Have you ever gone to the dentist and wondered how your teeth can feel so good yet need so many expensive repairs?

Ever listen to news from the left or right and wonder if everyone’s faking it – aka lying – to advance their ideology with Machiavelli, not Jesus directing?

No wonder we never tire of this familiar jest that’s getting less and less and less funny every day: “How do you know a politician is lying? His mouth is moving!”

When we watch the news or listen to a political press conference from any side, we know why one party hack put this little placard on his desk: “You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time. Not bad odds!”

Yeah, there may be a commandment about it, but human words are often punctuated by less than veracity.

In our ghetto, it’s often astoundingly bewildering and befuddling and downright aggravating when we hear church members, officers, and pastors say things so contrary to their ordination promises founded in Holy Scripture.

How can they say they are faithful to Jesus by the book when they say things so antithetical to Jesus by the book?

I think it’s because they didn’t understand the ordination promises about being faithful to Jesus by the book and don’t even know they’re lying…or never really believed those promises and just lied because they spent so many years preparing for something about Someone and don’t have the money or time or integrity to start over….or changed their minds about Jesus by the book after they were ordained and, again, don’t have the integrity to quit…or they’re a part of that eschatological reality of bad guys slithering in with the good guys to steal salvation through the kind of lying strategies mentioned by David in this psalm.

Parenthetically, when Hosea looked around and saw everything going to everywhere but heaven in a way that brings America’s current challenges to mind (read Hosea 4 for the startling parallels), he clearly fingered those who were to blame: “But let no one accuse and let none contend and don’t try to blame anyone or anything else because the Lord’s accusation is against you priests and pastors and officers and phoney-baloney-posing God-squaders! Because you have not told the truth and because you don’t even believe the truth for yourselves which is why you haven’t told the truth, my people are being destroyed!”

Ouch.

If we believe America and her churches are really going anywhere but to heaven, it’s time to admit the perditious parade is being led by pastors, politicians, professors, and the like who have substituted their words for the Word.

Thinking we are smarter than God and can substitute human invention for divine revelation is a lie so big that there’s not enough room in heaven for it.

Never forget lies never honor God, never advance the Kingdom, and never save.

Jesus is the way, and the truth, and the life.

Truth is Godly.

Lies are not.

Truth comes from our Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Lies come from the father of lies.

By categorical contrast, David celebrates the completely consistent trustworthiness of God: “God’s words are pure words…God’s Word guards and protects us…God’s Word is even purer than seven-times-purified silver.”

In short, Psalm 12 assures us that God can always be trusted; but when it comes to anyone else, watch your back.

Ever have somebody throw you under the bus?

You know what I mean.

Some people will do anything to anyone to get ahead – lie and accuse and betray and…all of those things listed as unGodly character traits in this psalm.

David says there are too many people like that in this world.

Then, he rejoices, there is God.

God’s truth is highlighted by an irrepressible passion for our existential and eternal welfare.

God doesn’t throw us under the bus.

He always provides and guides and protects and saves.

Though this psalm says, “No one faithful remains…The last decent person just went down…All the friends I depended on are gone,” we know David is exaggerating his sadness at least a tad.

There were faithful people who stood by David’s side against Saul, Absalom, and the enemies of God.

There are faithful people in America who are still esteeming the Word of God in Jesus by the book.

I don’t claim to know whose side is bigger.

I go back and forth on that.

Pero it doesn’t really matter because we know who wins in the end.

It’s like a friend of mine who went to a very, very, very troubled church that I know many years ago and said, “You’re wondering which side I’m going to be on. Well, I’m not going to be on any side but His.”

Friday, June 22, 2018

When I arrived on the corner of Lincoln and Main sooooooo long ago, I felt an unshakably strong call that I’ve repeated ad nauseum.

We are called to build upon the best of the past for a better future.

We are called to model Someone better.

We are not called to idolize or criticize or be content about the past.

It’s over.

Longing for the way things never were or maybe were but are no more inhibits future fidelity by chains to wineskins of the past that are fixed, brittle, inflexible, rigid, and incapable of ingesting the refreshing neuer wein of opportunity and charismata for incarnational ministries confirming intimacy with Jesus by the book.

Uh, simply, we are called to become increasingly faithful to Jesus by the book and, ergo, model Someone better.

I like how Chance the Rapper explained ameliorating human evolution fueled by spiritual evolution or increasing intimacy with Jesus by the book: “All of us have a responsibility to be greater than the people who came before us. We have a responsibility to be not as good as them, but to actually surpass them.”

How about this metaphor?

God who isn’t dead and is alive and active among people who believe in Him and want to behave like they believe in Him move with Him from number two lead pencil lives to supernatural technologies.

Intimate with Him, we are related incarnations of Him; or as Paul explained what happens supernaturally to believers, “It is no longer I who live but it is Jesus living in and through me.”

Like Jesus, we are involved in the world around us; salting, shining, and leavenating.

Again, simply, we walk the talk of Jesus.

That came to mind as I talked to my mom on 12 June 2018.

A little context before getting to the conversation.

With thanks to Nancy Heuer and Jim Wyatt for telling me about the fun and financial benefits of shopping at your local Salvation Army Family Store, I hit the one in Wilkes-Barre whenever I’m visiting my parents and sister in Pennsylvania.

A little after 10 a.m. on the 12th, I was standing in line at the store behind a fellah who was becoming quite animated in his verbal abuse of the cashier and her special needs assistant while claiming he did not change price tags for his intended purchases.

Anyone who knows my heart for God’s children with special needs along with an aggressively assertive sheepdogging beruf when it comes to wolves can guess how I reacted: “Perdon, amigo, pero do we need to have a chat about this outside?”

Bullies are bullies only when they’re getting away with being bullies.

Quickly, he backed down, paid as the clothing was priced, and went away.

I apologized to the cashier and found my reward in her assistant’s smile and surrender of her hand to be shaken.

When I told my mom about it, she scolded, “You’re always looking for problems and someday you’re going to get into real trouble.”

While I’ve learned over the years that it’s pret’ near impossible to win an argument with a parent or, uh, wife, I’ve also decided there are times when you go ahead and tinkle in the wind even if no one is interested in being baptized by the truth: “Mom, I don’t go looking for problems. You don’t have to look for problems. They’re all around us. You just have to decide if you’re going to risk being the solution. I’ve told you before that I’d rather die for what’s right than have my sons live with a coward. One of the biggest problems in America today is decent people are allowing savages to run wild.”

My mom rolled her eyes and we went for pizza.

Let’s be clear.

Crystal.

Problems are everywhere.

We decide if we’re going to pray and try to be the Godly response.

Or as Belvidere’s faithful pastor Dan Pope of Open Bible Church likes to say, “I’ve never tried to be controversial. I don’t have to try. The truth is controversial.”

We decide if we’re going to enable what’s wrong and rotting or pray and try to be God’s antidote.

Failing to do the right thing (omission) is as bad as doing the wrong thing (commission).

That’s what Jesus said: “As you do good things for others, you do good things for Me; and as you do not do good things for others, you do not do good things for Me.”

James: “For the person who knows to do good and doesn’t do it, it is a sin…If a brother or sister is in need and you say, ‘Go in peace, keep warm, and take care of yourself,’ but don’t help them, what good is that? Faith without works is dead.”

I’ll never forget one of the most penetratingly poignant, sobering, convicting, and convincing moments in my life.

During a session meeting of Kansas City’s Second Presbyterian Church, a perky and politically correct elder demanded more than asked, “Dr. Kopp, aren’t you going to do something about Rod being caught on camera while protesting at the abortion clinic?”

Before I could respond, elder Ted Horowitz said calmly, “Elaine, I am so proud of Pastor Bakker for having the moral and Christian courage to protest against those who would murder innocent human life. I just wish there were believers like him along the railroad tracks to Auschwitz when my grandparents were being carted off to incineration.”

Psalm 11 is about moving from panic to peace and from flight to fight as a supernatural by-product of intimacy with our Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

David probably wrote this prayer-song while Saul and his army were chasing him through the wilderness and closing in on him; while his friends were encouraging him to run away and save his own skin: “Escape to the mountain like a bird!”

As a man of God – intimate with Him and determined to incarnate faith-filled behavior for Him – David exuded peace not panic: “I have taken refuge in the Lord…The Lord is righteous. He loves righteous deeds. The upright will see His face.”

As we’ve heard many times, tough times don’t build character. Tough times reveal character; and when things got tough, David got tougher.

Instead of running away from fires to save himself, he ran into fires to save others as honoring God; instead of taking flight from his foes, he fought for his/His family of faith.

Hence, the question is rhetorical: “When the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? The bottom’s dropped out of the country. What do we do now?”

Clearly, David modeled Someone better.

He had peace not panic and fought the good fight of faith rather than flee from his/His enemies.

David already knew what the incarnate God would later reveal: “If anyone wants to come with Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lost it, but whoever loses his life because of Me will find it…The one who endures to the end will be saved…Whoever does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. Anyone finding his life will lose it, and anyone losing his life because of Me will find it.”

As the foundations of the world and even America are increasingly shaken, scorned, and threatened by darkness orchestrated by satanos – and anyone who doesn’t see that has been blinded by the darkness or been drinking too much Kool-Aid – the faithful, like David, have supernatural peace not panic as a by-product of intimacy with God and supernatural determination to fight the darkness with His salt, light, and leaven rather than run away, hide, and save their own skins.

Of course, being on God’s team is a no-brainer when considering the final standings.

So, like David and the faithful of all ages, we model Someone better – Master Jesus by our manual the Bible – with strong calm sanity.

Intimacy with Jesus by the book yields the supernatural ability to move from panic to peace and flight to fight.

Wednesday, June 20, 2018

The irony of American life was illustrated by the editorial cartoon that appeared in The Citizen’s Voice on 13 June 2018. It showed a graph charting America’s increasing economy, stocks, employment, wages,…and suicides.

Mother Teresa’s observation of this irony comes to mind. When asked what she thought of America’s great wealth during a visit, she said sadly, “I have never seen such poor people.”

How ironic that the wealthiest nation in the history of humankind has so many miserable people as documented by a suicide rate spiraling out of control.

According to editor-in-chief William Falk of The Week, “Every year, about 45,000 people commit suicide in the U.S. – twice as many as are killed in homicides” (6/22/18).

Research tells us that one in seven of our youth report having thoughts of suicide.

Most experts say such recorded statistics are very, very, very low to reality; estimating that many more deaths reported as natural were suicides.

Kirsten Powers asks then admits in USA Today (6/22/18), “Why are so many more Americans getting to this level of emotional despair than in the past?…[Clearly]…something is wrong with our culture.”

Candidly, Christians know why.

Faith-based life just ain’t what it used to be in America.

I saw that at the recent baccalaureate service for Belvidere North High School on 8 May 2018. Well-attended by graduating students and parents, I did not spot one member of the school board, teacher’s union, or administration. There wasn’t a teacher, sub, coach, or local politician in sight.

Everyone sees the symptoms of a Godless-to-defying America in our broken homes, schools, churches, media, entertainment, government, courtrooms, and just about every thread of the unraveling fabric of our culture.

For reasons betraying profound emotional, intellectual, and spiritual illness, America is broken and can’t/won’t turn to the only One capable of healing it.

Americans are giving up.

The nation is committing suicide.

David understood such fatalistic feelings.

With so many enemies including his mentor Saul and son Absalom, he felt lower than dirt on many occasions as noted in so many of his psalms.

If it were not for his unrelenting faith in the midst of life’s meanness, madness, misery, and miscreance, David would have been one of those deadly statistics.

While admitting faith does not make us immune to life’s miserable challenges, David knew faith overcomes them.

Psalm 10 is all about living confidently amid the challenges.

David reminds us to look up not give up.

He does not deny the meanness, madness, misery, and miscreance of life: “Wicked boasting…cursing, deceit, and violence…trouble and malice.”

What really troubles David is a feeling that God has taken a vacation or isn’t paying attention or doesn’t care anymore and isn’t helping the faithful during desperate times: “Why do You stand so far away? Why do You hide in times of trouble? Why are You avoiding me? Where are You when I need You?”

David almost comes off like a frustrated Vince Lombardi on the sidelines when the team seems to be losing: “What the hell’s going on out here?”

We know the feeling.

We’ve been there when we feel God hasn’t done that expected intervention.

Pero David and the faithful know God and the Godly win sooner or later, usually sooner than later, and definitely in the end: “The Lord is King…You have heard the desire of the humble…You will strengthen…You will listen.”

Though we’ll get to it before the parousia, Psalm 37:15 bears boasting in the ultimate victory shared with God: “I have been young and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous abandoned.”

The rock solid truth keeping our lives from turning into the sinking sand of despair to death is God saves sooner or later, usually sooner than later, and definitely in the end.

We’ll never know why we must endure, yet we know how to overcome.

Faith.

Trusting the One who has led us through the wildernesses of the past will do the same sooner than later, usually sooner than later, and definitely in the end.

BTW, God is our only option.

Only God enables us to overcome the meanness, madness, misery, and miscreance.

Nothing and no one else can do that.

People who don’t get that/Him tend to be…suicidal.

Their lives are not stable and they are susceptible to drowning in the inevitable perils of life for which there is no immunity.

The only life option is overcoming by grace through faith in Jesus.

Like so many of the psalms, that’s David’s message in #10.

So I guess it’s time for me to share something that I’ve never shared in over four decades of undershepherding.

It’s something that I share with David and people like him.

I can’t be as miserable as too many people around me who are miserable and want me to be miserable with them because it’s impossible to be that miserable once you’ve been saved by grace through faith in Jesus.

I’m serious.

There are people in our lives who want us to be as miserable as they are.

I’ll also confess there have been times when I’ve wanted to be as miserable as they are so I can, you know, empathize with ‘em because God knows I can’t sympathize with ‘em.

Yeah, that’s sick.

But there are lots of sick people in the world and sometimes, if we’re not holding tightly to Jesus, they’re contagious.

Truth is we don’t want to be like them and won’t be like them if we stay close to Him.

Being miserable is a choice; and while the reports are in and prove their numbers are increasing at an alarming rate, we don’t have to become a part of their statistics.

We can live through it all with/in/through/for Him.

Getting back to suicide, a famous friend told me, “I’ve had this recurring idea that God greets people who have committed suicide with warm gentleness: ‘I know it was too tough for you down there. It was almost too tough for Me.’”

Yes, suicide is a sin. It is a rejection of God’s best for our lives: “I have come that you may have life and have it abundantly!”

No, it is not an unforgivable sin. There’s only one of those: blasphemy against the Holy Spirit’s witness to salvation for anyone by grace through faith in Jesus.

So let’s get this straight.

God made this life so “good” by design; and it’s “good” as long as we don’t mess it up.

Instead of giving up on life when it gets unbearably tough, look up!

Facing the future unafraid in the assurance of the best thing forever (heaven) after the worst thing in time (death), jump on His back and hurdle life’s obstacles to the finish line.

Nobody, including David in Psalm 10, ever said every day will be a hot fudge sundae; but everybody who has ever joined David in seeing beyond the immediate problem to the imminent solution with/in/through/for God knows a few or even lots of bumps and bruises aren’t deadly.

I think of the boy who warned a crabber, “Mister, you better put a top on your bucket or the crabs will crawl up and out.”

“No.” the crabber assured the young boy, “don’t worry, son. When one crab gets to the top and close to freedom, the other crabs just pull it back down.”

Yep, lots of crabs in this world; and misery likes company.

Faith doesn’t make us immune to their disease; but it does mean we will overcome ‘em sooner or later, usually sooner than later, and definitely in the end.